On domestic violence, the commentary here makes me sick. DV is complex on a case by case basis, to say nothing of general patterns. But the much touted 50:50 gender assignment is particularly pernicious, not in that it is accurate or not (its accuracy is very dependent on the set of definitions and parameters used), but in the sense that it used essentially to claim that this is not a women's issue, that it is the same for everybody, so we can drop it as a policy priority and all go home now.

Incidentally, I speak as a practitioner here, a social worker, in practise for about 20 years, not as a purveyor of research and theory/ideology. Currently I manage a unit that deals with messed-up families, many referred by children's aid folks. Last year we dealt with about 70 families where violence was the presenting issue. While this is not sample that reflects the entire world population, it is a sample that, I think, somewhat reflects the reality of inner-city, low-income, North America.

Measuring who commits violence (bearing in mind that in many many families experiencing family violence, the victim fights back, often very violently) is not as pertinent as measuring a) who is harmed by violence (which is, obviously, a health issue, duh), b) who initiates violence , and c) who is able to protect themselves or flee from violence. In all three areas, there is a serious preponderance of female victimization.

For example, most of the better studies I have seen (and there really aren't any good ones because this is an extremely difficult thing to study) suggest that the initiator of harmful violence in families experiencing violent conflict is a woman in something between 15% and 20% of cases.

Out of our 70 cases last year, in 3 families it seemed to us that the female was the main perpetrator (note, "main" perpetrator; in an awful lot of the cases, especially those with alcohol & drugs involved, they are beating the crap out of each other and we can't really figure out who the bad guy is, or if there is only one). This ratio is pretty consistent with all my years of experience. (Except in gay/lesbian relationships, obviously; sadly, abuse is not unheard of in same-sex relationships of both genders.)

In the cases of who is getting harmed, harmed seriously, or killed, the numbers are much higher, over 80% of the victims requiring ER medical treatment are female. Whoever started them, women do tend to lose the fights. Once again, a medical issue.

We operate transitional and secure housing facilities (not women's shelters, though we work closely with them). We were even funded by a rather ideological men's group to offer such care specifically for fathers fleeing domestic violence. We put women fleeing domestic violence into our facilities about 20 times last year. We have never had to do so for a man (and we are ready and willing to do so, and have suggested it a couple of times). The reason is fairly simple, actually: men tend to have better financial and social resources to fall back on.

The dynamics of male and female abuse are quite different as well. While men may have an easier time leaving in an instrumental sense (money, job, car, etc), they experience much heavier social pressures, in that the shame in admitting to victimization is often considerably higher than the already big issue it is for many women.

In the past, they also faced a system that was seriously prejudiced against them, with a high likelihood of losing access to their children (locally anyway, a great amount of progress has been made on this issue, and while not gone, it isn't a hugely significant factor compared to all the others). As well, they tend to assume, as men, that they will be better able to maintain their own safety when confronted by a violent woman (sadly, this is not always the case, there are a great many equalizers available).

In terms of homicide, of the 8 clients I have had die of unnatural causes over the years, four were killed by their partners; one was a man was killed by his female partner (and I am pretty sure that she initiated the majority of the violence in that relationship), and three were women killed by male partners.

The one thing that is the exact same, that I hear all the time from victims of both genders, is that "s/he really loves me, s/he will change, it will be different this time..." and of course it pretty much never is.

Anyway, this is the ugly reality of my professional life, and I resent it when it becomes some kind of ideological battlefield.